Chapter 277 : Chapter 277
Chapter 277. Sylvia: Pointing Fingers from the Moral High Ground
The entire hall was deathly silent.
Logaris withdrew his hand and slowly wiped the blood from his fingertip with a clean silk cloth. He let out an extremely faint sigh.
Then he turned around.
There was no smugness on that handsome face, nor was there anger. There was only a faint exhaustion that made people feel especially uncomfortable when they looked at him.
“To protect this kingdom’s borders, I fought sixth-tier magical beasts on the front line. In the tower at Scream Fortress, I researched how to prevent demonic infiltration. I led the Northern Territory New Army on a thousand-mile forced march and snatched the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers back from a collapsing defensive line.”
Logaris’s voice was not loud, yet it carried far through the quiet great hall.
“And the first great gift I received upon my return was the Holy Church’s judgment.”
Logaris let out another extremely faint sigh.
There was no anger in that sigh. There was only the chill of someone who had seen through the fickleness of the world.
That expression struck the heart far more powerfully than any fierce accusation. The nobles present looked at the disappointment written across that young face, and quite a few of them subconsciously avoided his gaze.
“It truly is not a pleasant feeling.”
After saying that, he turned to look at Moran.
That glance was light and casual, yet Moran’s cheek still twitched slightly beyond his control. Clearly, he had not expected the Holy Grail to produce such a result.
But Moran was still Moran. His expression changed faster than one could turn a page, and a relieved smile appeared on his face, seamless and flawless.
“Heaven bless Astrelia! Count Logaris, it is truly wonderful that this misunderstanding has been cleared up. The Holy Church was merely acting out of caution. After all, the threat of demons is imminent, and no suspicious point can be treated lightly. I hope you will not take this to heart…”
“Caution?”
Sylvia, who had remained silent all this time, suddenly let out a cold laugh.
True fury ignited in her silver-gray eyes. The impact of her longsword returning to its sheath made everyone’s heart tremble.
“Since we have brought up the aura of Hell, then I would like to ask the Holy Church something!” Sylvia abruptly stepped forward. The pressure belonging to the Acting Governor of the Northern Territory instantly overwhelmed the full hall of nobles and power brokers. She pointed bluntly in the direction of the Holy Church’s people, her voice as cold and sharp as ice.
“The reason mana fluctuations appeared above Winter City was because Count Logaris and I encountered a sudden demonic attack! If we had not bled and fought desperately on the front line one step ahead of time, that monster would have slaughtered hundreds of thousands of living beings across the Northern Territory long ago!”
“We once told Mage Morton about this when he came to investigate. I simply do not know whether he reported it to you!”
She paused, her eyes full of mockery. “You sit comfortably in the greenhouse of the rear. Not only do you show no gratitude to the meritorious officials risking their lives on the front line, but you even take your laughable and hole-riddled ‘Divine Revelation Spell’ and place the hat of a capital crime on a hero’s head at a royal banquet? Is this the Holy Church’s so-called ‘mercy’ and ‘fairness’?!”
She turned her head slightly, her gaze pressing toward the Pope like a blade.
“What is even more absurd is that we were not the only people from the Northern Territory present when we fought that high-level demon.”
Her voice suddenly lowered, yet it became even more penetrating than a shouted rebuke.
“Your Holy Church’s Saintess, Her Highness Aurora, was right beside us at the time. She fought shoulder to shoulder with us, personally witnessed the demon’s attack, and personally cast divine spells to resist that demon’s assault.”
A wave of suppressed gasps rang through the great hall.
“What? Before staging this ridiculous ‘demon accusation’ in the Royal Capital, did you not even have the courage to ask your own Saintess?”
Several cardinals lowered their eyes and kept their faces still, wishing they could shove their own heads into their collars on the spot. Everyone knew that Saintess Aurora and Princess Sylvia had an unusual relationship, so the Saintess had never been informed of this operation from beginning to end. This was no longer a mistake. This was the Holy Church slapping itself in the face.
Sylvia raised her voice, every word piercing the heart. “Or are you telling me that you knew the truth perfectly well, yet allowed certain people to deliberately suppress the intelligence so that, at today’s royal banquet, the Count of Mechanism who risked his life for this country could die here without justice or clarity?!”
Those words were thrown out like a barrage of cannon fire. Not only did they smash the irrefutable trump card of “the Saintess as witness” into the Holy Church’s face, but they also directly placed the entire civil-official system and the Holy Church’s upper ranks over the fire, allowing the Northern Territory to completely occupy the absolute moral high ground.
Pope Gregory VII still cared about his dignity in the end. Being bombarded like this in front of all of Astrelia’s nobles and power brokers, while every accusation was impossible to refute, left him with no room to maneuver. The Holy Grail had already tested him, and the result was spotless. The Saintess had likely been present, and they had indeed never asked her.
At this moment, he finally realized one thing—perhaps from the very beginning, he had been a chess piece placed on the board in someone else’s precise game.
The Pope closed his eyes, then opened them again. In those cloudy eyes, there was now a compromise called “reason.” Under the terrified gazes of all the nobles present, he bowed slightly to Logaris.
“The Holy Church will not ignore the truth. This time, we listened to one side and misunderstood a hero.” Gregory VII’s voice was hoarse and heavy. “I will order the Holy Tribunal to publicly clarify Count Logaris’s reputation.”
He turned to look at Barnabas.
“This fault will be remembered by this old man.”
Logaris raised an eyebrow. He had not expected this old fellow to be capable of lowering his head so readily. It seemed he was someone who still understood right from wrong.
“Since Your Holiness has said as much, I naturally would not dare pursue the matter further,” Logaris said lightly, his tone even carrying a perfectly measured trace of “magnanimity.”
The banquet ended hastily amid an atmosphere that was strange to the extreme.
Inside the great hall, the banquet came to a hurried end in deathly silence.
The stagnant pressure in the air had not completely dissipated. The various nobles and power brokers present all harbored their own thoughts as they rose and took their leave one after another. In such a situation, no one wanted to remain here for even one more second.
Barnabas sat calmly in his original seat, still chewing that blueberry tart. After swallowing the pastry, he turned and called out to a palace attendant who was cleaning up the aftermath.
“Young man, wait a moment. These plates of raspberry cake, and that baked apple with three layers of frosting—yes, that one—wrap them up in oiled paper. This old man will take them with him.”
The attendant’s hand trembled as he held the tray, and he looked for help toward the cabinet officials not far away. The whole hall was deathly silent. No one dared speak up to stop him. If a seventh-tier mage wanted to pack up a few desserts, then even if he wanted to pack up the entire royal kitchen, everyone present would have to smile and help him load the cart.
Pope Gregory VII stood at the entrance to the great hall, holding his holy scepter.
He turned around. His gaze did not fall on Barnabas, who had no bearing of an expert at all, nor did he look at Logaris.
His slightly cloudy eyes narrowed as he glanced at Prime Minister Moran, who was personally seeing him off at his side.
The Pope’s shriveled lips pulled into a curve utterly devoid of mirth, and he spoke with profound meaning. “His Majesty the King has long been absent due to illness. Now, everything inside and outside Golden Rose Palace, every great and small affair of Astrelia, is handled solely by you, Prime Minister. Lord Moran, you have truly ‘dedicated yourself body and soul.’ I fear even the Holy Church must be impressed by your ability to turn clouds and rain with a flip of your hand.”